chief forester of Somerset; it is unclear to whom he owed that position. Royal service In 1197, Hubert Walter, who was Archbishop of Canterbury and Justiciar, appointed William to the administration of the royal stannaries, or tin mines, and in 1198 William was placed in charge of tin production, an office later known as the Lord Warden of the Stannaries. Under his control the mines became much more lucrative for the king, and accounted for a total of £1100 in William's first year of administration. As part of his administrative work he became the first warden of Lydford Castle after it was constructed in the 1190s. In 1199 he was involved in a dispute over the stannaries with another official, Hugh Bardulf, temporarily losing control of them – along with his office as sheriff – in 1200. The reason for the loss of these offices is uncertain. After restoration to office, he remained as Lord Warden of the Stannaries until 1215. In 1198 and 1199, William was Sheriff of Devon and Sheriff of Cornwall, along with another royal servant, and served as a royal justice. In 1200 he was recorded as a receiver of the carucage, a tax on land, in the Pipe roll; whether this meant that he was a local or a national collector of the tax is unclear. By 12 September 1204, William was Archdeacon of Taunton in the Diocese of Bath, and he witnessed the election of Jocelin of Wells as the new bishop of the diocese. He was jointly placed in charge of the mints of London and Canterbury in 1205, along with Reginald de Cornhill, with whom he also shared the collection of the tax of a fifteenth on merchants, a post the two had held since 1202. In May 1205 William, along with de Cornhill, was given custody of one of three dies for the mint at Chichester; in July the king gave William's custody to Simon of Wells, the Bishop of Chichester. William was one of the officials in charge of the collection of a tax of a thirteenth in 1207. William was also placed in charge of vacant ecclesiastical offices, collecting their revenues for the king. He performed this office for the Diocese of Worcester around 1200, the Diocese of Winchester in 1204, for Glastonbury Abbey in 1205, and for Whitby Abbey in 1206 and 1209. From his actions it can